TCU to the Big East?

I think it would have made a lot more sense to have the Mountain West football Champion play the Big East football Champion instead. Is the basketball tourney going to include all 17 teams? Or its own Les Robinson game, but worse since instead of an 8-9 it will be a 16-17? Or will 1 team stay home? Or will this be the final domino that splits the conference along football and non-football lines?

Bowl Month?

I remember Bowl Week not that long ago. The expansion of bowls and games has to be bordering on unsustainable. Saw the New Mexico Bowl last weekend... and there are games daily through New Year's.... then the BCS overflows into the first week of January... and the bowl season closes out January 9th before Auburn and Oregon play on the 10th... will Cam Newton still be eligible then? I'm not sure the demand is there for B.C.-Nevada on the 9th or Pitt-Kentucky on the 8th. Did the NCAA hire someone from the NBA to ensure the longest postseason mathematically possible?

College Football Realignment

Nebraska to the Big Ten makes sense; the Cornhuskers definitely lost a lot when the Big 8 became the Big 12. They lost their Thanksgiving weekend game with Oklahoma when the two rivals were placed in separate divisions (Texas-Oklahoma became the marquee regular season conference game). The Big 12 chose not to preserve or establish cross-divisional rivalries the way that the SEC has (Florida/LSU, Auburn/Georgia, Alabama/Tennessee, etc.). A consideration may have been the conference championship game the first weekend in December – a rematch wouldn’t be best for the conference. That coupled with the conference center of gravity moving from Kansas City to Dallas over the past 15 years, it makes sense for the Huskers to move to the Big Ten. I had to laugh at the idea that Rutgers would receive a Big 10 invite. Only non-sports fan MBA’s would think the Rutgers athletic program would deliver the New York City media market to the Big 10 (and its network). Notre Dame and Penn State are the college programs that NYC fans follow. For basketball, St John’s, Syracuse, and Connecticut fans have been buying the bulk of the Big East tournament tickets at Madison Square Garden for 30 years. Rutgers might make sense geographically, but not practically. I don’t think that the Big 10 will go to 16 teams unless Notre Dame is part of the equation.
Colorado and Utah to the Pac-X enable that conference to hold a championship game but I’m not sure how much this addition will help the Pac-10. Colorado football hasn’t been bowling much recently, and while Utah was strong in the Mountain West, they will find the size and speed much more challenging over the course of a full season compared to 1 or 2 inter-conference games that are more important to them than their Pac-10 opponents. The attempt at luring Texas and Oklahoma was a good strategic first strike towards the 16-team Super Conference, but I don’t know that it can be successfully employed. The Big East has 16 teams for basketball and hasn’t found a good regular season or post-season tournament format yet. The college seasons don’t have enough games to facilitate a thorough conference schedule for 16 teams. The 12-team format with 2 6-team divisions allows for a good schedule, but the best remains an 8-team conference. That enables home-and home for basketball and a full slate for football. Would a 16 team format with minimal cross-divisional regular season competition be successful?
The unanswered question about Texas and Oklahoma is which universities eventually move with them if the 16 team Super Conferences form? Texas Tech may very well turn into Iowa State in 5 years. Bob Knight has left, his son has also left; will the basketball program improve, or will it fall back to its historical performance? And with Mike Leach’s ouster as Football coach, will they be able to continue their offensive excellence that has led them to recent success? Texas A&M didn’t want to partner with the Pac-10, but was interested in the SEC. The SEC only would need 4 programs to get to 16 – would the 4th school be Oklahoma State or basketball-rich Kansas? Or do they bring 5 and point South Carolina back to the ACC? First on the map for the Big 12 is getting back to 12 members so they can hold those recently booked Championship games at JerryWorld. Do two of the snubbed SWC members (Rice, SMU, TCU, Houston) receive invites? Or does the conference look to expand geographically and invite Memphis and Louisville? While those programs would be in the SEC’s area, I don’t think that the SEC would be particularly interested in them.

What's Next for the Big 12?

So Texas decided not to flee to the Pac-X and Oklahoma (and Texas A&M, Oklahoma State, and Texas Tech) will stay in the Big 12 with them. The conference does need to invite 2 new members to keep the Conference Championship Games scheduled for JerryWorld on track. I'm curious if the ditched members of the old SWC (Houston, Rice, TCU, SMU) will have a chance for an invite. They might consider rejecting an invite on principle but I'm sure there is a revenue target they'd accept for.

Football is driving the bus, so these ideas are based solely on that, not about academic reputation, student body size/composition, etc. I don't know that the non-BCS I-A schools in Arkansas or Louisiana would benefit the Big 12(10). How about Louisville and Memphis? Losing Louisville would hurt the Big East, but that conference's days as a BCS Conference are numbered.